Simone Silva

SIMONE SILVA d1957. Egyptian-born French film actress who appeared in a handful of British B-movies during the 1950s. Her first and only top-billing came as a femme-fatale opposite Lloyd Bridges in the Hammer Films programmer Third Party Risk (1954). She was once quoted as saying she would "do anything" to get in the newspapers. She is nowadays best known for her voluptuous figure and her shameless publicity-seeking activities. She briefly made global headlines following a notorious incident at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival  where she posed topless with actor Robert Mitchum for photographers, causing a sensation when the photographs were flashed around the world. She was found dead in her London apartment on 30th November 1957, aged just 29. An autopsy gave the cause of death as a stroke. Struggles with her weight had always been ongoing and friends believed that lengthy periods of excessive crash-dieting were the most likely contributory factors to her premature death.